


the kids are alright-ish

by Rupzydaisy



Series: the haruspices sing on [7]
Category: His Dark Materials (TV), His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
Genre: Annie's backstory, Canon Typical Violence, Gen, Marisa Coulter luring kids away with chocolatl, S1 Ep6 The Daemon Cages, slightly AU, the bolvanger kids, the kids go feral, the station
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-24
Updated: 2020-01-24
Packaged: 2021-02-27 16:08:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,246
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22389964
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rupzydaisy/pseuds/Rupzydaisy
Summary: “We’re here alone.” Annie replies, letting Kyrillion in his mouse-form snuffle close to her ear. "I'm Annie."“Ah, Annie. I see.”She watches Mrs Coulter nod to herself and straighten up a little, and behind her, her golden daemon hesitates and his mouth puffs out a breath of hot air. Annie prepares herself to run, because there’s a million questions that follow “where are your parents?” and none that she wants to give an answer to.But instead of asking a question, the woman leans back and turns her head towards the drinks stall. “When I was a young girl, there was only one day of the year that I was allowed to have chocolatl."She looks sad, to Annie, and that’s a funny thing to imagine; that this woman in her fancy, soft clothes, with her own car and driver, and a golden daemon that looks like something out of a dream, looks sad.
Series: the haruspices sing on [7]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1609966
Kudos: 12





	the kids are alright-ish

**Author's Note:**

> i've had this on my mind since the episode aired...and finally finished it!

Annie stands just around the corner from the stall, not too close to be considered loitering but not too far from the rich, heady smell of chocolatl on the steam that floats across the air towards her. People drop things on busy streets like this. Wallets were quick and easy, but she's picked up her share of loose change or small bits that could be sold. 

She didn't often choose to come into the unfamiliar streets in the heart of the city because it's harder for a girl running at breakneck pace to choose _this way or that way_ if she doesn’t know where either of them would end up, but there was something in the air that morning when she woke that made her walk to the edge of the East End, and then a little further more. 

She left the crowded streets full of houses and their slush frozen pavements and walked on to where the shop fronts are light up with anbaric light and the food in the windows is right _there_ , and could be taken with a slap to the back of her hand. Kyrillion makes himself small and climbs into her top pocket to keep warm, and whenever Annie looks down, she makes sure she smiles at him, even with her freezing toes and her burning fingers. 

Loitering behind the market stalls seemed like a good idea to stay warm, unfortunately, it wasn't long until she’s noticed. 

A woman dressed in a baby blue coat with a thick fur hood walks straight down to her car and stands, watching her driver load up her bags of shopping into the boot. Her daemon pads along on the snowy pavement beside her on all fours, tail twitching. Annie can't help but stare at the strange creature, golden like summer sunshine. She thinks he must have felt her gaze because he turns to look straight at her, and a moment later the woman tilts her head sideways too. Annie lurches backwards and ducks further around the corner of the street into an alleyway, and freezes when she hears the crunching of footsteps on half melted snow as the woman follows. 

“Hello.” The woman speaks softly, and her smile seems sympathetic about the cold and about the emptiness in the alley, but not so much about Annie herself. 

“Hi.” 

"My name is Mrs Coulter." Her eyes dart up and down the street, “Are you here alone? Where are your parents?” 

“We’re here alone.” Annie replies, letting Kyrillion in his mouse-form snuffle close to her ear. "I'm Annie." 

“Ah, Annie. I see.” 

She watches Mrs Coulter nod to herself and straighten up a little, and behind her, her golden daemon hesitates and his mouth puffs out a breath of hot air. Annie prepares herself to run, because there’s a million questions that follow _“where are your parents?”_ and none that she wants to give an answer to.

But instead of asking a question, the woman leans back and turns her head towards the drinks stall. “When I was a young girl, there was only one day of the year that I was allowed to have chocolatl." 

She looks sad, to Annie, and that’s a funny thing to imagine; that this woman in her fancy, soft clothes, with her own car and driver, and a golden daemon that looks like something out of a dream, looks sad. 

"My brother and I, we would wait for Midwinter's Eve and then it would be one single, small cup. It was the best thing of the year. When the maid put the mugs away, my mother used to say that too much of it would rot our teeth, and we'd have to wait a whole year again.” 

They catch each other’s eyes for a moment, a starving child and a rich woman, and then the spell is broken. 

“I think, that we all deserve to have a good memory to hold onto, don’t you?” 

With an inviting smile, she steps backwards, and Annie can’t help her own feet from following as they wind up in front of the stall. “Two mugs of chocolatl, the large ones.”

The man behind the stall nods, and even though he looks at Annie out of the corner of his eye, he still pours out two of the biggest mugs of chocolatl she has ever seen in her life. Mrs Coulter passes it over, cupped between her teal suede gloves, and together they share a little, secret smile. 

Kyrillion pokes himself out further by her neck and dips his head close to the lip of the cup, drinking in the smell. Although Annie tries to savour it, the chocolatl is drunk quickly leaving her mouth heavy with the sticky, rich taste of sugar. It's a shame, but it was the greatest delight she's had in living memory. She knows that standing there on the frosted pavement beside the strange, but kind, rich woman and feeling _happy_ would stay with her for her entire life.

Then Mrs Coulter sets her empty mug down on the side of the stall, turns to Annie, and says in a hesitant but sweet tone, “I have need for help on an important project I'm working on. I need an extra pair of hands this afternoon, would you be able to help me?” 

xxx

When Annie arrives at The Station just after a snowstorm, she is hauled along by a Tartar with the biggest wolf daemon she had ever seen. The promise of work that the woman had told her while she held an empty mug of chocolatl in her hands had faded, and since they had left Brytain, the promise of safety isn't one anyone can give her. 

Mrs Coulter had visited them just once, hours before Annie was put in a truck with a bunch of other kids, some from London, some from further away, and told that they would be helping her with important work soon. Things didn't seem to make sense, not while they were herded along and told to keep quiet. She would have minded more, if they weren't being fed or if they had to sleep anywhere other than warm beds with blankets and pillows. 

It seemed safe enough, until about a week ago not long after they'd reached the north with its biting cold air and a mousey-looking man in a clean black suit and tie made all the children stand in a line. He had frowned at the lot of them, studying their faces, asking their ages, while his vulture daemon plodded along behind him and sniffed the air. It was he who pointed at Annie and four others, and then they were pulled away and forced to sit on a sledge driven by a fur covered Tartar who liked pointing his gun at her and letting his wolf daemon growl loudly into the Arctic night. 

Kyrillion hates it more than she does, turning small but no less deadly, copying the forms he'd picked up from the other children they'd met. He tries them all on for size; a hooded snake with a darting, forked tongue, a beetle with razor sharp pincers, a lizard with rows of pointed teeth and spines. He changes back to a mouse as bright lights appear on the horizon and the brush of his soft fur against her cheek makes her smile weakly. 

Annie later learns that with the improvement in the weather, the station was aflutter as business resumed, but it means nothing at the moment of her arrival as she is cajoled into following a nurse to get changed out of her damp snow clothes and into dry ones. The Tartar who had brought her there takes his money and slouches off to a group of other Tartars with wolf daemons sitting by a fire as she is led onwards. The Station is a maze of cold concrete corridors and locked doors that can only be opened by adults. It feels like a prison and looks like one too, until she's shown into the dining room and there's dozens of other children there. The fear of the wolf daemon recedes, but she's not given a straight answer to any of her questions, and the nauseous, underlying anxiety creeps further under her skin and into her blood and refuses to leave her. 

When she is taken for tests, Annie walks down a grey corridor with a nurse who doesn’t look at her and who doesn’t seem to have a daemon. 

_No, that’s not right, it must be small. A mouse or a bug, in her pocket or under her collar. Look closer,_ she thinks as she follows, and her legs begin to turn leaden.

"I can't see one! He should be there!" Her daemon whispers to her, trailing back as far as their bond would allow, but she knows all Kyrillion wants is to dig his fox teeth into her trousers and tug her all the way out of there. 

She'd let him if they could. 

xxx

She's put into a dorm of ten beds filled by girls who had been there for long enough to get used to this, but not long enough to stop crying at night. 

"Stop it." Annie whispers loudly. "Someone will hear. They’ll send a nurse, or worse, one of the doctors." 

"I don't- I don't care."

"Yes you do, if you had a brain." She retorts, careful to throw it back as quietly as she can. 

There's a stilted silence, and Annie sighs heavily into it, like the force of her breath could blow the roof away and she could climb out and run home. She was good at that, running, even if home was not as good to her. The rest of them are more alike, and she doesn't blame anyone really for believing the same things she did, or for not being able to run when they heard a whistle. 

The crying falters and there's a sniffling in the darkness. Annie turns over, and thinks that it's not the same as the orphanage, but there's something alike here too. 

"They took her. The one who used to sleep in your bed." The sobbing girl whimpers it out, and this time Annie feels a lump in her throat. "And she's not coming back." 

"This isn't good." Her daemon mutters, close to her ear. 

She knows it, because none of the adults at The Station could answer her questions on where the older children she travelled with have gone either. There had been four of them, and they had been in the tent at night, but gone by breakfast the next day, leaving her with the Tartar and his wolf daemon. That had been two weeks ago, and it had left her feeling unsettled, but not as unsettled as the whispers in the dining room from well-fed children here, in the warmth with clean clothes, who say that there are empty chairs for a reason. 

"Then we've got to do our best to make sure they don't choose one of us again." Annie says into the dark.

They all deserved more than that, if only they could get out. 

xxx

“Coulter’s here! She's here!” Beth’s voice sounds half-strangled, but maybe that’s because she’s pressed herself as close to the wall as she can to keep her balance on the skirting board while trying to look out the one small window in their room. “On an airship!” 

“Quickly!” Mary hustles the kids from the four corners of the room and they quickly work to straighten their bed covers and plump up the pillows as the thrumming noise of the airship lowers itself to land. 

Sarah checks under the beds, crawling the whole way across and yanking up a spare pillow. When Annie stares at her, she scowls and says, “The monkey might see! Or she will. Don’t just stand there, sort out your own bed.” 

In the few minutes they have, the dorm room is turned inside out and everything is set carefully into place as if there were no children living and sleeping there. Then they hear a light rap on the door before it swings open, and she steps through wearing a baby blue coat with thickest, fluffiest fur hood any of the girls in the room had seen. 

Any apart from Annie, who feels a sickly-sweet taste in her mouth and fights the urge to spit. 

“Ah, girls! How wonderful it is to see you. Come now, stand in front of your beds.” Mrs Coulter instructs, and they obey without a sound. 

She sweeps through the room, noting the cleanliness with a soft smile. When she rests a hand on Mary’s shoulder, the small girl smiles back, and it spreads from there to the others. Annie feels it too. With her nice clothes and her strange, golden monkey daemon, Mrs Coulter brings a touch of glamour to The Station, and the _want_ to make her pleased. 

But Annie hears the monkey moving behind her, his little black claws tapping on the floor as he drifts in between the beds, searching like _her_ eyes do. It follows Mrs Coulter at a short distance and when it reaches Annie’s corner of the room, it pauses and sniffs in her direction. Even though it's smaller than a third of the size of the Tartar's wolf daemon and could have probably been eaten in a single bite, it's infinitely more unnerving. 

Kyrillion freezes before turning into a mouse and slipping into Annie’s boot. 

“It’s lovely to see you again, Annie, isn’t it?” 

Mrs Coulter steps forward and stretches out a hand that she finds herself unable to lean away from. Her fingers brush through her dark blonde hair, tucking it neatly behind her ear with a familiarity they've never had. 

Annie nods with the taste turning sour in her mouth, hating her so, _so_ much. 

She turns back to address all of them while she drifts back to the door, a waft of heady perfume trailing behind her. “Thank you, girls, you’ve been a great help here. If you continue to be on your best behaviour, it’ll make me very, very pleased.”

Mrs Coulter smiles again, and there’s a room full of smiles given in return. Just as she turns to walk out of the door, she leaves them with her final thought. “Do you know, I think you’ve done a much better job than the boys.”

It isn’t until they are led into the dining hall for supper that they see another empty chair. One that Timothy Shortland sat in to eat his toast for breakfast that same morning. 

xxx

"Lizzie Brookes." 

Her name is called out by the doctor, and it's unexpected and too soon for them to talk anymore about anything. It's not fair.

Lizzie is frozen in her chair, and Annie’s not sure who's breathing, if anyone. The whole room is electrified, as it is whenever a child is called away. Fear sweeps around, and is quickly followed by a second fear that while this time they’re not calling you, it could be the _next._

Her hand slaps down over Lizzie's, an apology and a promise not to forget her, all in one. She squeezes hard, and Lizzie's balled up fist underneath her clammy palm is tight. 

She stands a moment later, and she looks less like a child and more like a towering statue, untouchable and immovable, and utterly lost, until she's guided away. There's something in her eyes, behind the fear, like an unshakeable promise.

_This isn't over._

Annie recognises it as all the children are led back to their dorm, and isn't sure she can believe the spark of hope that's somehow still alive in her. It had all but vanished after finding out the truth about Coulter and what was really going on at the station. She shovels the rest of her food in her mouth, nodding at the other girls at her table, the ones who heard Lizzie’s plans about the fire alarm and escaping, and there’s a silent agreement that spreads. 

xxx

She puts on her coat last, after helping the younger ones into theirs and zipping it up to their necks. The coal silk is smooth under her fingers and they tremble a little until Kyrillion turns into a common grass snake and winds himself around her left wrist. Her demon sways as he unwraps himself, encouraging the others to turn small, pocket sized, or cling tight around their person's necks and hands, and to not let go. 

"You're going to have to run. And you keep running, and you don't look back. Do you understand?" She tells them, and is glad that no one argues. "Have you ever seen a Gyptian? They’re the ones coming." 

There are a few nods and one small boy, Terry, pipes up to say he is one. 

"They've got arrows, don't they?"

"Yeah, and throwing knives." His grin was wide, and the rush of excitement was infectious. "My ma's real good with them."

Annie feels a stab of guilt from all the times she used to wish that there would be an empty bed in the boy's dorm and not one of the ones in her own. "Well, you run as if your ma's on the other side of the walls, and then you keep running some more. Got it?"

She looks around the group, crammed into the one cloakroom. There's a sinking feeling in her stomach, and Annie does her best to keep it off her face. It worked whenever _she_ came to inspect the dorm. She could call it up again and pretend that her calmness was as flat as the snowy landscape beyond the concrete walls. 

When she walks back to the door, hand over the handle, there's just one final thing to say over her shoulder. "We go. Now." 

xxx

"Let’s not be silly. Let’s just...do as you’re told." The doctor says, hand outstretched, ready to take them away from the gunfire and terrifying roars that somehow shake the concrete walls. 

The lights flicker and glint off his tie clip, but the north wind blows hard against his face making his eyes water and he edges closer with his patience waning. His dark skin pales from the cold and his wavering voice turns insistent as Tartars prowl on the higher levels above them with their guns loaded. “Come on children, and do as you’re told.” 

"There's nowhere to run." Minnie, from the next dorm over whines from behind her, and she was right. The door was locked, a dead end. 

Kyrillion flutters his wings by her cheek before transforming into a wildcat, scrabbling for purchase on the puffy fabric of her coat. Without thinking, her arms reached out to scoop him closer, and the doctor's eyes are suddenly fixed on her movement. On her daemon. It was the same look the room full of doctors gave them as they watched her step backwards, away from Kyrillion, as far as she could go. 

A sudden flood of anger washes straight through her from head to toe. 

As if she was going to present him to be weighed and measured again. Poked and prodded, with the whir of a strange camera taking pictures of the things they were experimenting. As if she would put him down so that he could snip the heart-bond between them like Lizzie said they were doing. As if she would allow it, if she could help it. 

"We're not running now." Annie says, and her voice carries in the quietest corner of humanity in the north. "We're not letting them take our daemons away. I'm not letting my Kyr go."

"We're fighting?" The Gyptian boy asks as his daemon drops down to the snow, changing to a grey wolf on the way down. She bares her white teeth and snarls loudly, stalking forwards a little. 

The doctor looks at them with uncertainty, but still he beckons them close while looking around, alert to the sound of approaching gunshots and strange whistling in the air. Annie feels it too, there's a change in the air, something that The Station hasn't felt, ever. 

"They took us because they thought we'd go quietly. Because they thought no one cared. I dunno about you, Gyptian boy, but I care, and in Bow, we're nothing quiet." 

Her Kyrillion, now a wildcat, snarled again in agreement. 

In front of them, the doctor put his hands up as a couple dozen eyes turned to look at him. When the children stopped shuffling backwards, he hesitates for a moment, and as his voice falters their desperation grows. "Now, now. You remember about being on your best behaviour…"

He trails off as the other kids bunch forwards, their daemons shifting to animals with claws and teeth, fighting animals. 

Kyrillion licks Annie's cheek one final time before pushing his face over her shoulder to address the other daemons. "You fight! You tear and bite and you keep fighting!"

Then he jumps from her shoulder and slips around her leg to launch himself at the doctor's daemon as a bronze-red fox with a thick black stripe wound around the bushiest part of his tail. The man staggers back, and then falls to the floor as Annie collides into him. The Gyptian boy is mere inches behind her, reaching out to punch and kick whatever he could reach. 

Commotion quickly follows as the other children join the fight. 

They change, like a string plucked, like an arrow loosed never to be replaced in its quiver. Annie feels it happen as they run and dodge and hide. One moment her Kyrillion is biting hard to stop the doctor from taking Simon's bird daemon, and the next she gasps, feeling the change take hold before she pushes Simon back towards her and hearing the little chirps of relief.

There's a grim recognition working its way through their small group, because it can't be stopped, and it can't be helped. They lose their innocence, and their hands and daemons are bloodstained. Their boots leave bloody imprints on the snow. When it is over, they move on together. 

They push past a nurse staring blankly at the walls, fingers tapping lightly against her legs. 

They smother a Tartar and his wolf, and a second with his hawk. 

Kyrillion nurses a cut to his forepaw, licking it until the ache is bearable. After pausing to catch their breath back, they run on, heading towards the outer gate as the fighting swells around them. A white bear wearing thick plates of armour bats aside four men at a time and crushes guns and bones under his fearsome claws. The sight of him makes Annie's heart thump in double time because there's more than a chance of making it out now, and she whispers a quiet thanks to Lizzie. 

They watch as a ferocious Gyptian woman throws all her daggers at Tartars and guards and doctors alike until her hands are empty and sobs out, "Children! Children! Oh, you're _safe_ now! No one's going to hurt you now!"

Feeling a spark of warm resignation seep into her bones, Annie leads the group of children to her. They huddle together to their daemons, even Kyrillion presses close, and they let themselves be herded to safety. From a distance, Annie watches with hard eyes as more Gyptians in their furs and stuffed hats sweep through the corridors with arrows and bows in hand while knives and bullets fly wild until there's no one left to fight. 

xxx

When the fight was over and done, they were huddled together and kept watch over by a handful of Gyptians. She looks around the group in a heady sort of daze, cut and whole children alike, daemons and empty spaces, and then she shudders and pulls her Kyrillion close. 

"We’ll have to look after ourselves now." He says as he pushes into her lank blonde hair. 

It makes her scoff. "We always did." 

"I won't change again. I'm fixed." He whispers to her, "We'll be like this, forever now."

"I can live with that." She tells him while looking around at the rest of the settled daemons. “We’ll be okay, Kyr.”

The adults set about searching through the remains of The Station, so Annie wavers for a moment before moving towards the daemon-less children. She recognises Bridget McGinn with her shorn hair and missing her glasses, and sucks in a deep breath. Then she sits down beside a girl who had slept in her dorm. Henrietta and her Eli had been taken weeks ago. They had shaved her head until it was just a smattering of cropped blonde over her skin, and she only blinks when someone walks by with a torch, and just breathes in the cold air without saying a word, without a whimper from the chaos around her. 

It wasn’t hard for Annie, not in the way she thought it would be, but slowly, gently, she reached out a hand and takes Henrietta’s in her own, feeling like a single snowflake blown southwards and melting into the sea. Then she squeezes tightly, holding it there until the Henrietta's fingers warmed up again, turning pink from grey. Kyrillion's tail brushes against Annie's leg, cheek pressed tight to her knee in a silent promise. 

"You will too. There's always a home for kids like us, you just have to make it." 


End file.
